The Supreme Court had both Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood repealed on Friday, now giving states the right to severely limit abortion access. When Justice Samuel Alito handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, the decision wasn’t a surprise. There had been leaked drafts of his opinion published on Politico early in May; in this case, the final ruling has remained consistent with the leaked draft.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote for the majority. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
“That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” Alito continued.
According to Alito, abortion is not deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition, and thus is not afforded any protections. Justice Samuel Alito concurred with a group of Justices which consisted of Justice Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote separately, and the liberal minority consisting of Justice Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
More conservative hardliners will now be able to impose even stricter restrictions on abortion. In many states, people who are raped or experience incest will be required to go through a nine-month unwanted pregnancy and birth to hold onto their own reproductive autonomy. The sad truth is that babies will come into the world suffering from one health condition or another and can pass away unexpectedly at a young age. People who do not want to have children of their own are forced to raise them.
The ruling will not result in the elimination of abortion rights entirely. Some states have promised to safeguard access to abortion, so many women seeking the procedure who are able to afford the journey to that state will likely find safe refuge there. At this point, it’s not known how quickly the 22 states that already have laws limiting abortion will enact their bans in response to the ruling. Some states, including Missouri and Texas, acted quickly to enact their trigger bans in the wake of the ruling. And most state bans restrict abortion only after a certain point in a pregnancy, with exceptions.
In Oklahoma, however, this is not always the case. Legislation sponsored by the Republican-controlled legislature to prohibit all abortions, with exceptions for situations where the life of the pregnant person is in danger or if a rape has been reported to law enforcement, was just passed. In other states, Republican officials are increasingly pushing legislation that offers no exceptions for rape or incest victims.
Some efforts to establish protections for abortion rights have not been successful. In May, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have formally established Roe v. Wade. The GOP enjoys a legislative advantage in many states due to biased district lines and strict electoral laws.
President Donald Trump’s appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch, to the U.S. Supreme Court is prompting legal watchers to contemplate the liberal court’s future after liberals watched former Justice Antonin Scalia die with no nominee made to the bench. President Barack Obama was a lame duck President by then and so Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader of the Senate refused to consider any Obama appointee to the court, to safeguard conservative prerogatives. So President Trump was left to make the only Supreme Court appointment, with conservatives eagerly awaiting and waiting to overturn Roe v. Wade. The verdict had been settled months before, with Ginsburg’s death weeks before the 2020 election allowed Trump to appoint Barrett to the Supreme Court, enabling conservatives to have a majority on the bench.
“[The court’s decision] eliminates a 50-year-old constitutional right that safeguards women’s freedom and equal station,” the liberal justices wrote. “It breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law. In doing all of that, it places in jeopardy other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. And finally, it undermines the Court’s legitimacy.”
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